


Big Developments

by story_monger



Series: Short Notice [5]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bunker Fic, Gen, Human Castiel, Size Fic, Team Free Will, Tiny!Sam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-11
Updated: 2015-06-11
Packaged: 2018-04-03 21:33:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4115626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/story_monger/pseuds/story_monger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Things come to a head.</p><p>In which Dean takes a long walk, Kevin builds his resume, Castiel does arts and crafts, Crowley is massive amounts of trouble, and Sam figures some things out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Big Developments

The voices drifting from the dungeon were bare whispers. Castiel could drown them out by shifting on his bed and producing a light squeal of bedsprings. He didn’t do that, though, out of consideration of the figure on his bedside table.

Sam sat with his legs splayed and bent, one hand dug into hair that had dried nearly an hour ago. He bore a hole into the concrete wall on the opposite side of the room, and even at his size, Castiel could see Sam’s jaw working.

Castiel’s fingers twitched with the desire to take Sam into his hands, but Sam had already made it clear that he didn’t want to be touched. Castiel knew that given Sam’s druthers, Castiel would be in the dungeon with Dean and Kevin, and Sam would be left alone. But Dean had asked Castiel in a low voice to, “watch Sam, make sure he doesn’t do something stupid.”

Castiel had heard Dean’s low fear that wasn’t immediate enough to be called panic, but was almost worse in the way it boiled and festered. Castiel knew, because he felt the same fear in his chest. It was what made his fingers twitch so much.

A single, guttural shout drifted from the dungeon. Castiel winced involuntarily. He glanced to Sam, but Sam still sat with his legs splayed and bent, his gaze on the wall. He hadn’t spoken a full sentence in the last two hours. Not since he’d been slumped in Dean’s palm, soaking wet and still looking rattled, explaining that Crowley had hinted something like this would happen.

“Crowley?” Dean had demanded. “When?”

“I got into his room a few weeks ago,” Sam had replied, voice unsteady. “I thought he was goading me. It’s the kind of thing he’d say, y’know?”

“What did he say?” Castiel had asked.

“He guessed that we’d use this method to fix me,” Sam had said, running one hand down his face. “Told me it wouldn’t work. Then offered to help for a price, same old, same old.”

“Fucking—” Dean had looked to Castiel and Kevin. “We need to talk to him.”

That had been when Dean handed Sam to Castiel and said to watch him. Castiel had thought at first to protest, to say that he wanted to help interrogate Crowley, but then he’d glanced at Sam again—pale, soaked, wide-eyed—and had let his words die away.

Now, another shout pierced the room. Castiel wondered what weapon Dean was using. Or maybe he’d let Kevin do the honors.

“Sam,” Castiel said. “Do you want to go somewhere we can’t hear—“

“I don’t care,” Sam grunted.

Castiel rolled in his lips. He didn’t think that pushing the matter would get him anything; he could almost see the dark cloud hanging over Sam. So Castiel shifted a little on the edge of his bed, folded his hands in his laps, and continued to wait. He knew how to do that.

***

Dean wiped at his forehead as he trudged up the stairs, and his hand came away with sweat.

Beside him, Kevin’s breaths were quick and shallow. He’d been shouting by the end, and Dean hadn’t been in any kind of mood to tell him to stop. At least Crowley had been too subdued by then to say anything smarmy; he just watched Kevin with a slight twitch to his mouth. Bastard knew when he’d tapped a weak spot, and Sam was the fucking jugular. Dean had to wonder whether Crowley had somehow set this up from the beginning. That was probably Crowley hope, though: to put doubts and fears into all their heads about what the King of Hell could still accomplish. But no, Dean told himself firmly. Crowley couldn’t so much as take a piss without the wards reacting. This was just a shitty accident wherein Crowley was lucky enough to be in a position to take advantage. Had to keep that in mind.

When they reached the top of the stairs, Dean landed a heavy hand on Kevin’s shoulder. Kevin jumped, then blinked up at him.

“Take a cold shower,” Dean told him.

“I…what?”

“I’m serious, it’ll help,” Dean said. “You need to calm down.”

“I don’t—“ Kevin blinked again, harder, then looked around the hallway like he couldn’t quite remember how they’d gotten there.

“Take a shower,” Dean repeated, letting his hand slide from Kevin’s shoulder.

“What about Sam? The spell? We need to figure out—”

“You’re not any good strung out like that,” Dean shook his head. “Take care of yourself for a little, then when we’re ready, we’ll regroup.”

Kevin bit his bottom lip like he was considering arguing then gave a small nod. Dean remained by the door and watched as Kevin slowly walked to his bedroom at the far end of the hall. When he was satisfied that Kevin would at least pretend to follow Dean’s advice, Dean made his way to Castiel’s room.

Dean hesitated before rapping on the door. He stared at the grain of the wood, compulsively ran his hand through his hair. When he finally tapped his knuckles against the door, he almost hoped that they were both asleep in there, and Dean would have a few more hours before he had to look his brother in the face and acknowledge that Dean had no idea how to fix this.

A slight shuffle, then the door eased open to reveal Castiel. His eyes looked heavier than usual.

“Hey,” Dean breathed. His eyes darted over Castiel’s shoulder and caught sight of a tiny scrap of plaid and a miniature face. Sam said something, but he was too far away for Dean to be able to hear his voice. Dean hated that.

Castiel stepped back to let Dean in the room. “How did it go?” he asked in a low voice.

“It didn’t go anywhere,” Sam said, his words finally audible. Dean turned to his brother, sitting against the bedside lamp with his head rested in one hand. “Dean, you know he’s going to lie any way he can to get what we wants out of us. He asked to be let go, right?”

Dean shrugged vaguely. “Sort of,” he said. “A call to Hell. But listen, Sam, _he’s_ the one trapped in _our_ dungeon, remember?”

“Yeah, and? He’s dangerous, Dean. Thanks to me, we’re handing him the perfect leverage.”

“Sam—“

“And the only thing to do is take that away from him,” Sam continued, raising his voice.

Several seconds of silence fell over the three of them.

Dean inhaled too hard before speaking. “Sam, Crowley’s the best shot we have right now,” he said. Dean could feel both Castiel and Sam’s heavy gazes on him, and why not? He’d just admitted that they were scraping the bottom of the barrel.

“Maybe we missed something in the Men of Letters’ archives,” Castiel said. “There are several books we never looked through.”

“Right,” Dean bobbed his head. “Yeah, we have that too.” From the bedside table, Sam didn’t say anything.

***

Dean considered Sam to be the quiet and thoughtful type overall, but things had crossed well into the quiet and brooding territory. Dean couldn’t blame him. Stuck with a condition where the two best chances for recovery lay in a bunch of dead men’s notes or the King of Hell. Dean would be brooding too.

It was just that Sam being so obviously caught up in his own dark thoughts made Dean sick to his stomach. He was supposed to make sure this sort of stuff didn’t happen to Sam, or to fix it when it did happen. Not piss around for a month and let Sam muddle his way through being smaller than Dean’s hand. Dean didn’t even want to think about what John would be saying to him right now.

Dean flipped shut the book he was supposed to be scanning and turned to Sam, sitting at his elbow.

“I need to get outside,” Dean said. “Want to come?”

Sam lifted his head then glanced into the rows of shelves that comprised the Men of Letters library. Castiel and Kevin were somewhere in there, rooting through old files.

“We’re allowed to take a break,” Dean said to Sam’s expression. “They won’t even notice we’re gone.”

Sam turned back to his brother. “Where did you want to go?” he asked.

“Just. Out. Not in the bunker.” Dean proffered a hand, and Sam stood slowly. It took him another few seconds of looking hesitant before he climbed into Dean’s palm. Dean would never have said it out loud, but Sam never seemed to weigh anything. Dean only felt the soft pad of Sam’s feet; they almost tickled.

With a sigh Dean only barely heard, Sam settled into his hand and wrapped his arm around Dean’s thumb as Dean slowly stood and headed for the library’s doorway. They both remained silent as Dean wended a familiar path through the bunker’s halls and rooms, until they climbed the main stairs and emerged into the chill of late fall. Dean dropped his eyes in time to see Sam flinch against the cold.

“Sorry, sorry,” Dean murmured, cupping his hand to keep away the worst of the wind. He lifted his hand to let Sam crawl into the curve of his neck and shoulder. Dean popped the collar of his jacket and felt Sam sink in against his skin.

Dean walked. He did this sometimes, when the bunker ceiling came down too low and his legs were too restless to even sit in a car. He had a path beaten out, one that crossed the highway a few times, wound through the forests surrounding the bunker, cut across a few neighboring farms. Sometimes Dean saw deer and turkey out here. Usually he was left completely alone.

Sam didn’t speak for as long as it took Dean to climb the shallow hill that overlooked the hidden bunker, then back down, then along the deep creek that got dangerously flash flooded in the spring, finally skittering a neighbor’s cornfield. They were approaching the highway again when Sam shifted. Dean had suspected he was asleep.

“What’re you thinking?” Sam asked. His voice carried easily to Dean’s ear now, but it still came soft at its edges, like it might get lost without a tight enough grip of attention.

“Nothing,” Dean replied honestly. “That’s the point of the walking.” Another few paces. “Why, what’re you thinking?”

“Too many things.” Dean felt Sam heave a heavy exhale then curl up tighter against him. Dean cleared his throat and batted aside tall grasses before his boots hit asphalt. The road stretched empty and gray in both directions. On the other side, the ghostly deer trail reappeared to wind through bare trees.

“You um.” Dean paused. “Wanna get it out?”

Sam chuffed. “Not really our m.o. is it?”

“Hey, I’m offering here,” Dean said. “Take it or leave it.”

Sam didn’t reply immediately. Then, as Dean kicked through a drift of brown leaves, he said in a small and steady voice, “I’m working on accepting the idea that I might be like this for a long time.”

Dean stopped. He turned his head automatically trying to find Sam’s face, then cursed and held up a hand. Sam understood and crawled into his palm, albeit sluggishly.

“Hey,” Dean said, bringing his cupped hands up to eye level. “No, don’t think like that. You think like that, you’re giving up.”

Sam stared back with that Winchester brand of stubbornness smoldering behind his expression.

“Don’t tell me how to feel,” Sam replied. “I’m just looking at this situation and trying to be realistic about it.”

“Goddamnit, Sammy,” Dean growled, mainly so his voice couldn’t break. “We’ve faced bigger hurdles under tighter deadlines. You know we have.”

“Okay,” Sam shrugged, shoulders flicking straight up and down. “I’m not saying you’re wrong; I hope you’re right. But I also want to walk into the idea that I’m going to be this size the rest of my life. Not get thrown there after too many months of keeping my hopes up.” Sam was keeping his face passive now, Dean could tell.

Dean pressed his lips together and lowered his hands a little. “Fine,” Dean said. “But I’m not letting this go until you can reach the tall shelves again. Sorry if that bothers you.”

“No.” Sam leaned into Dean’s curled fingers a little. He patted the base of Dean’s left ring finger. “No, I wouldn’t expect anything else.”

***

Sometimes, when Kevin was in a hopeful enough mood, he’d let himself imagine an After All This. After the tablet had been properly translated and the supernatural world settled down. After Kevin had found his mom and could be assured of her safety. After it was safe for Kevin to halfway rejoin normal society and go to college. Though, he’d have to explain what he’d been doing off the grid.

“Spent several years working with ancient and dead languages,” Kevin muttered to himself as he sifted through a pile of unsorted scrolls. “Ancient Sumatran? Easy. Egyptian? In my sleep. Let me into your anthro and religious studies departments, buddy, I’ll talk circles around them. ”

“What?” Castiel asked from several boxes away.

“Nothing,” Kevin replied. He paused, squinted at a scroll, then kept shuffling. When he reached the dusty bottom of the box (and its resident dead beetle) he let the pile of papers go and straightened with a crack of knees.

“Honestly,” Kevin said, placing his hands on his hips and thoughtfully kicking the box. “Maybe we just translated the original scroll the wrong way.”

Castiel shifted and squinted up. “I may no longer be an angel, but I was around when people were still making dirty jokes in that language. We followed the instructions correctly.”

“But was there an…an appendix? An edited version?” Kevin tossed up a hand at Castiel’s expression. “I dunno, I’m just trying to think of everything.”

Castiel still looked doubtful, so Kevin shrugged and bent to drag another box of loose paper toward him.

But that evening, when everyone else had disappeared into their respective rooms, Kevin pulled out his pen, a notebook, and the well-thumbed scroll with the shrinking spell’s antidote. He started by skimming through the spell’s instructions and listed ingredients, then moved on to the spell’s foreword and its side notes. The idea that they had missed something fundamental nagged at Kevin, making him rework every sentence with several different translations, as if he shook hard enough then the answer would come tumbling out of the scroll.

By two in the morning, Kevin had about shaken his brain out and still nothing. At best, he’d found a brief mention of “solidifying the spell’s intent” that was apparently better explained in an accompanying scroll. But who knew whether the Men of Letters had that scroll, or whether it would be of any help? Kevin scooted his chair back and pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, groaning quietly.

Something scuffled; the sound was small, but it still made Kevin jerk around with his heart in his throat. It took him a few seconds to make out Sam standing near the wall. Kevin caught Sam wincing, like he’d hoped to pass unseen.

“Sam?” Kevin let his arms fall. “What’re you doing?”

“Walking,” Sam said. He didn’t offer any elaboration and instead nodded at the table. “Tablet?”

“Um.” Kevin glanced at his notebook covered in almost indecipherable chicken scratch.

“What, the spell stuff?” Sam said. His voice grew harder. “C’mon, Kevin you need to sleep.”

“I will,” Kevin shrugged, flipping at the corners of his notebook. “I just had an idea and was trying to follow it.”

A long pause.

“Any luck?” Sam asked.

“No.” Kevin hauled himself to a stand. “But there’s one more thing I want to check out.”

“You should sleep,” Sam repeated.

“Yeah, I will,” Kevin said. “Just one more thing to look for.” He held up a hand slightly. “Want to come?”

Sam looked mulish, but did slowly climb into Kevin’s palm. Kevin tucked his cupped hand close to his chest and strode across the room, to the hall leading to the library. The barest of weight against his sternum made Kevin glance down and see that Sam had curled up with his arms hugging his knees, his shoulder and head leaning against Kevin.

Kevin wanted to say something encouraging, but he felt as if all the appropriate words had been reused into uselessness. Only so many times a guy could hear “It’ll be all right” and “Don’t give up” before it started to sound farcical.

So Kevin used his thumb to gently touch at Sam’s shoulder and left it at that. Sam would know what he meant.

Although the distinction between night and day was minimal in the bunker, Kevin still imagined that the library was quieter, more solemn, in the small hours of the morning. His footsteps echoed against shelves and files, muffled slightly by the perpetual layer of dust. Kevin could see where they had been working by the disturbance of the soft gray shroud.

The shelf where Kevin had found the spell’s scroll was nearly dust free from how much activity it had seen. Keeping Sam close, Kevin craned his neck and tried to see the other scrolls that would accompany the one sitting back in the main room.

“What’re you looking for?” Sam asked. Even his small voice seemed to resonate more than usual.

“Something the spell’s scroll referenced…” Kevin grinned suddenly. “This,” he said, sliding a scroll from its place and waving it in triumph.

“What is it?” Sam asked as Kevin wound his way out of the shelves.

“Another scroll meant to go with the one with the counter spell,” Kevin explained. “I was hoping it could help explain why our job didn’t work.”

Sam fell silent.

When they reached Kevin’s worktable again, Kevin let Sam hop from his hand before he clattered open the scroll and hunched over the old text.

“I might need your help,” Kevin said after a moment.

“Sure,” Sam said, leaning over the parchment.

Sam, Kevin had realized a long time ago, was something of a language prodigy. He navigated Latin and Ancient Greek almost fluently, and Kevin had witnessed Sam teach himself the basics of dead languages within a few hours. Now, Kevin found that and he and Sam could cobble together a passable translation. It didn’t have all the nuance that Castiel would be able to provide, but within the hour Kevin had a rough paragraph scrawled into his notebook.

“It’s intent,” Kevin said as he and Sam looked over their work. “This is talking about how to make your spell’s intent reality.”

“So it’s more than mixing some things together and saying words?” Sam clarified.

“Right.” Kevin skimmed several lines, pen tapping a staccato against the table. “This is talking about how you need uh…you need to honestly desire the end result. I think we’re okay there.” Kevin frowned and tapped the notebook. “Then they say you need to earn it? But the translation’s a little vague.”

Sam, standing on the scroll, walked across several lines of text. He pauses and looks down, and at first Kevin could barely hear him when he spoke.

“I think it says you need to believe you have a right to the spell’s result. That you deserve it.”

Something in Sam’s voice, in his posture, made Kevin still his tapping pen. He watched Sam stare down at the scroll, his expression inscrutable.

“Well,” Sam finally broke the silence and glanced up at Kevin. “I don’t know if this solves anything.”

“No,” Kevin admitted. “Probably not.”

***

Sam did a lot of roaming these days. It started as a way to keep practicing his climbing. Sam would pack his tools, tell Kevin or Castiel that he’d be gone for a little while, then go looking for varying structures to tackle. No one stopped him, not even Dean, though Sam could sense his reluctance. They were indulging him, Sam knew.

He could now scale shelves and couches with relative ease and had made real headway with tables and chairs. He started delving deeper into the bunker, looking for new places to practice. The more daunting the better. He sought the blankness that came with the hard physical exertion, the way he couldn’t think about much else if he was focused on not falling.

Eventually, Sam would have days when he’d spend the entire time wandering. The bunker had plenty of back hallways and locked rooms that no one had taken time to explore yet. Even though Dean would probably have flipped a shit if he knew Sam was wandering dark, damp rooms on his own, Sam found himself most calm when walking through these abandoned spaces. Occasionally he’d disturb a few spiders or a nest of mice. Once he had to fend off a massive rat. But after the tiyanak, they all seemed exceedingly manageable. Sam found that a burning match kept most creatures at bay, allowing Sam to walk. Just to walk.

Soon Sam found new entrances to the same maze of tunnels and crawlspaces that he’d first found a month ago. He started to leave marks with a stub of graphite, and soon could wander the space behind base boards and between walls without getting too lost. He started to find the vents that opened into the kitchen, the main room, the dungeon.

Sam tended to avoid the dungeon. He had no desire to see Crowley or to so much as hear his voice. Crowley, as far as Sam concerned, should be forgotten down there and allowed to rot away. And instead Dean kept confronting him, all because Sam had been an idiot who couldn’t keep his hands off one old witch’s jar.

“You shouldn’t say that,” Castiel told him one evening, about two weeks after the failed spell. They sat in the makeshift living room, Castiel on the couch and flipping distractedly through a pile of old notebooks while Sam worked on the couch’s arm mending one of his climbing hooks.

“Why not?” Sam asked, walking along length of twine. He counted his strides to measure the length he needed, then knelt and snipped the twine with a nail clipper, handled like a pair of shears.

“Because it could just as easily have been me who found that jar. Or Dean or Kevin.” Castiel flipped the journal shut and tossed into a box waiting at his feet. He stretched across the couch and tugged the next yellowed journal toward him. “Sooner or later, it would have happened.”

Sam was silent as he collected the two lengths of twine he’d already cut and, with sharp tugs, started to braid the three pieces together. “Well,” he finally said. “Dean should forget Crowley. He’s obsessing over getting the bastard to talk.”

“Because he needs something to focus on,” Castiel said distractedly. He paused, squinting at a brittle page covered in crowded, neat handwriting, then huffed and tossed the entire notebook into the box.

“What’s in those?” Sam asked.

“Expense reports,” Castiel said, side-eying the pile of notebooks remaining on the couch. “These men spent a lot of money on alcohol.”

Sam snorted, tugging at the strands of twine to keep them tight. The next moment, he gave a muffled yelp when Castiel shifted and stretched out across the couch. His head came to rest on the edge of the couch’s arm, creating a large, hairy bush several steps to Sam’s left.

“I’m…what does Kevin call it?” Castiel shifted just enough to peer at Sam. “I’m resting my eyes.”

“You might as well go to bed,” Sam said, going back to his twine.

“Mm,” Castiel hummed. “It’s not so late.” A pause. “I’ll go to bed if you go to bed.”

“I’m not tired,” Sam replied automatically. He focused on the pattern of the twine. The strands were all as thick as ropes were in his regular size; he could feel the blisters forming already.

Castiel didn’t answer, and when Sam peeked over, Castiel’s lids had fluttered shut. Sam continued to work in silence, accompanied only by the steady breeze of Castiel breathing. He thought to be proud of himself for barely getting anxious about having a boulder-sized head perched so close.

After nearly 45 minutes, Sam eventually had to lean back and flex his aching hands. He’d made progress on the rope, but he could see that he had several nights of work ahead of him still.

“Do you want help?”  Sam jerked his eyes up and found Castiel’s eyes half open. Sam looked back down at the twine, flexed his hands again, and shrugged one shoulder.

Castiel’s giant hand descended to scoop up the twine. Still sprawled across the couch, he lifted the twine above his head and began to braid in slow, neat movements. Sam watched him for a moment, then slowly stood and crossed the couch arm to where it rounded down. Sam crouched, slid down, and his feet sank into the sweater material covering Castiel’s shoulder. Castiel didn’t move as Sam picked his way across a soft landscape of fabric, until he reached the place above Castiel’s sternum. Sam sat and wrapped his arms around his shins. He tilted his head and watched the rope of twine materialize above him.

Castiel started to hum. It was a soft hum, just enough to send a low vibration through Sam’s bones. Sam slowly leaned back on his hands, letting himself rock on the tides of Castiel’s inhales and exhales.

He didn’t realize that he’d dozed off until he peeled his eyes open. He was now curled on Castiel’s chest, a finished twine rope piled neatly a short way from him. Above Sam hovered a massive umbrella of yellowed notebook. As Sam watched, Castiel’s hand slowly appeared to sift through a few pages, creating a small rain of dust and paper fiber.

The humming was still there, shifting in and out of hearing range.

Sam slid his eyes shut again.

***

Several days later, Sam was walking along the ventilation system that ran along one of the main halls with his hand dragging along the old welded sheet metal. Slightly at first, then growing, the space around Sam began to vibrate with voices.

He wasn’t going to eavesdrop, he knew it wasn’t fair when no one knew that he snuck around the bunker. Except then he heard his name and paused automatically.

“—know that Sam wouldn’t like it.” That was Kevin.

“Yeah, well, if this works then Sam won’t have to know anything.” And Dean.

A long pause. Sam leaned forward without thinking.

“And how sure are you that this will work?” Castiel.

A loud sigh. “Hell, Cas, what do you want me to say? I get it, this isn’t the ideal option, but right now it’s the best we have.”

“We might still find something—“

“And have you seen Sam lately? This is _hurting_ him. He needs to get back to normal.”

Neither Castiel nor Kevin seemed to have a ready reply to that.

“Fine,” Kevin finally said, his voice quiet. “I’ll help.”

“Thank you.” A pause. “Cas?”

“I suppose.”

Sam remained frozen in place with his hand pressed so hard against the ventilation shaft’s wall that his wrist ached.

***

Sam only appeared that evening long enough to let Dean see he was still alive before retreating to his bedroom. Granted, he hadn’t used the bed in months now, but a set of folded towels in the lower shelf of the bedside table served as a decent substitute. Sam liked the space; it was the right dimensions to feel like a proper room.

Sam clambered onto the shelf and tossed his pack of tools in the corner. In his other hand he clutched a bit of bread that Castiel had pressed on him before Sam had taken his leave from the main room.

“You need to eat something,” Castiel had said in a low voice, his massive fingers nearly making the bit of bread disappear. Sam had accepted the bread, peered into Castiel’s face, and wondered whether he somehow knew what Sam had heard. Sam wasn’t willing to dismiss the possibility.

Now, Sam slowly tore the bread into small pieces while staring a hole into the wall of the shelf. He made himself eat all of it, largely because he wasn’t interested in being woken by hungry mice in the middle of the night. But generally, Sam had a hard time with food these days. The textures and consistencies changed considerably at this size; nothing tasted quite familiar. Maybe the others had noticed this. Maybe that was why they felt they needed to do something behind his back.

Sam exhaled hard. He wasn’t all that miserable. Or if he was, had he really been that bad at keeping it to himself?

Sam popped the last of the bread into his mouth and stretched across the folded towel. He stared above him, at the underside of the table’s drawer. He had a scattering of unrelated things stored in there. A paperback. A few pencils. Other things that Sam couldn’t recall now.

He let his lids slide shut, but Sam didn’t realize he was falling asleep until the crash jerked him awake.

For several seconds, as often happened on waking up, Sam still thought he was his proper size and couldn’t fathom how he’d ended up in this unfamiliar room. Another crash, and Sam’s world snapped back into sense. He rolled off the towel and scrambled to the edge of the shelf, leaning out as far as he dared to look toward the bedroom door.

Nearly a minute of complete silence passed.

“Hello?” Sam called without any real expectation of receiving an answer. His voice wasn’t the type to carry well. Somewhere in the distance, a door slammed.

Sam retreated to the back of the shelf and slung his pack of tools over his shoulder. Then, slowly, he slid from the shelf to the concrete floor. He darted across the bedroom floor and slipped through the ajar door.

The hallway around him stood empty. Going on instinct, Sam made for the nearest vent, just managing to slip through the slats and tug his pack after him. He walked down the dusty, bare corridor the way he did in hunts, with careful treads and measured breaths. He only wished he had a gun.

Sam knew the bunker’s innards well enough by now to find his way to most of the main spaces: the central hallway, the control room, the kitchen. All were empty.

Moving faster, Sam sought out the narrow passageway that would take him to the dungeons next. He had a sour feeling in the pit of his stomach that became harder to ignore the closer he got to the opening that he’d first found weeks and weeks ago, when he’d gone after the key Kevin had dropped.

When Sam reached the edge of the crack, he paused and cocked his head to listen. Nothing. Sam drew his needle and advanced a few steps into the room.

For the first several seconds, Sam couldn’t fathom what he was looking at. The only light filtered in from somewhere beyond the closed door, so the small hills were at first barely visible. One of them groaned.

“Cas?” Sam said without thinking, then darted forward. Castiel lay on his back, arms and legs akimbo. His head lolled to the side so Sam could just see that his eyes were shut, his mouth agape. He breathed; that was promising. Moving as fast as he could in the near dark, Sam tried to find blood, wounds, anything that he would have to take care of immediately. But Castiel’s body seemed sound.

Sam next turned his attention to the second hill, Dean, and did the same. Again, no obvious wounds.

Finally, Sam jogged across the floor to where he could just make out the outline of the chair to which they had chained Crowley. As he neared, Sam’s stomach dropped.

It was empty.

Obvious, now that Sam thought of it. They must have decided to give in to Crowley’s demands in exchange for insight for how to cure Sam. And now they’d lost him. Sam dug one hand into his hair and let out a wordless, low growl of frustration. He’d _told_ them.

A brief shout and low thump rattled the walls. Sam whirled around, needle back in his hand, and sprinted for the hole in the wall without thinking. Scrambling through several vents and between walls passed in a blur, until Sam stumbled through an old mouse hole that dumped him into the main room. And yes, there lay Kevin slumped on the ground, a knife slipping from his loose hand. Above him, flipping through reams of paper on the table, stood Crowley.

Sam swallowed and tightened his grip on his weapon. Crowley continued to rifle through the papers, his movements growing more and more erratic. Suddenly, he paused, turned, and glared directly at Sam.

“I was wondering where you were hiding,” Crowley said in a mildly scolding voice, like Sam was a poorly trained pet. A click of fingers, and Sam was flying through the air, the wind stinging his face and making his hair and clothes snap. He thumped painfully into something soft and reeking of sulfur. Immediately, he raised his needle and drove it into Crowley’s palm.

Sam’s breath was left behind when a second set of fingers grabbed him around the middle and plucked him into the air again. The needle slipped from his hands, and he watched it spin to the ground, which sat impossibly far below. He came to a sudden halt in front of Crowley’s disaffected face.

“You know where the damned tablet, don’t you?” he asked.

Sam glared. Crowley cocked his head. Then he squeezed.

Sam managed a stuttering inhale before the force of Crowley’s grip forced the air out of his gaping mouth and dug his pack into his spine. Sam scrabbled wildly at Crowley’s hand, but the grip didn’t lessen. Sam couldn’t so much as gasp, let alone shout.

Just as Sam was sure that he’d be snapped in half, the pressure released all at once. Sam collapsed in a heaving pile in Crowley’s palm.

“Tablet?” Crowley repeated.

“I don’t—“ Sam swallowed at the air. “I don’t—if it’s not—there, I don’t—know.”

Sam raised his head just enough to see Crowley contemplating Kevin’s prone body.

“I suppose boy wonder could have some jury-rigged hiding place,” Crowley mused aloud. He shrugged, and the world disappeared again in a blur of movement. Sam slammed into something dark and springy. He remained still for a moment before he was thrown forward again, though this time he felt more of a swaying motion. Her lifted his head and peered at the bar of light coming in above him. A pocket. Crowley had put Sam in his pocket. Sam pushed himself to a stand, swaying in time to Crowley’s steps, and leaned against a seam trying to peer out of the pocket’s top. He caught a jumbled image of Crowley’s hand reaching for Kevin.

“Hey!” Sam bellowed—as much as he was able. “Touch him and I kill you!”

“Promises, promises,” Crowley replied. He shifted Kevin’s face toward him and touched at his eyelids. Three things happened almost simultaneously. Kevin stiffened and wrenched open his eyes. His mouth snapped open to unleash a horrific scream. And Sam hauled himself out of the pocket and into thin air.

With Crowley crouching, the floor was not quite as far away as it had been before, and Sam managed to make a rolling land that kept him from breaking anything. Still gasping for his full breath, Sam stumbled away from Kevin’s flailing limbs and sprinted across the floor. He didn’t bother to glance behind him as he slid beneath a cabinet.

Sam stumbled to his knees, his hands slapping against the wood floor, as Kevin’s screaming rose in pitch. He grabbed hanks of his hair and growled in frustration. He needed to help Kevin. He needed to get out there and find a way to kill Crowley. But to do that he needed…he needed to not be—

Two gunshots. Kevin’s shouting cut off. One more gunshot.

Sam wrenched his head up and scrambled to the edge of the cabinet to peer into the room again. Dean stood at the room’s entryway, leaning against the doorway and with a gun raised in one slightly trembling hand. Just behind him, Sam could see the Castiel. Crowley glanced down at his chest then squinted at Dean.

“I feel like you’d have learned by now,” Crowley said.

“Wasn’t trying to kill you,” Dean said, his mouth twitching up at its corners.

Crowley cocked his head, then made an almost comical gasping sound as he doubled over. Castiel darted forward and bent over Kevin, who lay far too still for Sam’s comfort.

Crowley glared daggers at Dean. “You filthy little—“

“Hey, I donated my own good blood for those bullets,” Dean said, limping forward. “Now we’re gonna get you back in the dungeon and we can—“ He’d only taken a few steps into the room when Crowley lifted a hand and sent him flying back. Dean thumped into the wall and squirmed there, shouting obscenities.

Beneath the cabinet, Sam felt frozen. He could see the gun a short ways from Dean, and if someone buried the rest of the bullets into Crowley they could slow him down enough to—but Sam couldn’t fire a gun and he wouldn’t be able to make it all the way across the floor without Crowley seeing him.

Castiel leapt to a stand, still half crouched over Kevin.

“You can’t fight the both of us at once,” Castiel thundered. “Not in your state.”

Crowley seemed to hesitate before he lifted a second hand.

Castiel doubled over with a low cough, his arms crossing over his midsection and his face screwing up into one of agony.

Without a clear notion of what he was aiming to do, Sam darted out from beneath the cabinet. Instead of sprinting across the floor in plain sight, Sam moved along the room’s edges. He kept an eye on Crowley, who seemed to be wavering on keeping both Dean and Castiel in check. Good. It might give Sam a chance.

When Sam reached the base of one of the tall bookshelves, Crowley stood a few feet away with his back turned. He was saying something to Castiel, but Sam had tuned him out. Swinging his pack from his shoulders, Sam yanked out the fishhook with its newly braided twine rope. Sam gazed up at the back of Crowley’s jacket, judged his distance, then threw the hook up.

The last few weeks paid off. The hook snagged on the fabric of Crowley’s jacket. It made Crowley turned slightly, and Sam started to scramble up.

The distraction was enough to let Dean lunge forward for the gun. Crowley caught him at the last minute, but he was panting heavily. Sam could feel him starting to shake, but he focused on the rope, on the hand-over-hand and keeping his grip on the twine. Suddenly, Crowley’s hand appeared above Sam and groped for the fishhook. When he found it and yanked it out, the world blurred and Sam had to hang on to the rope for dear life. Crowley brought the hook and rope up to his eye level and glared at Sam.

“Filthy, stupid rat,” he hissed.

“No,” Sam said without thinking. “I’m not.” Sam still wasn’t thinking when he yanked his second hook from his pack and leapt.

When the hook caught into Crowley’s eye, his shout seemed to burst Sam’s eardrums. Sam held grimly on, squinting his eyes against the reeking blood that oozed from the punctured eyeball.

The world exploded.

Sam instinctively brought his hands up to clap over his ears, and as he let go of the hook, he began to fall. Sam gazed up and saw the neat hole in the middle of Crowley’s forehead. Crowley stared ahead with a glazed expression in his one good eye.

Sam closed his eyes and wished that he had a more friendly last view before he shattered against the floor.

And then, his body seized.

***

The first thing Sam saw was his fingers curled against the wooden floor. Something about that confused him, and Sam stared hard at the sight to puzzle it out.

“Sam!”

Sam blinked slowly. He got it now. He couldn’t see the individual wood grains. They were somehow…too far away.

“Sam!” A hand on his shoulder. A full hand. Sam snapped his head up and hissed at the deep ache he felt in his muscles and bones. “Hey, hey bud, it’s okay. Just take it easy.”

“Dean?” Sam tilted his head up more slowly, and saw his brother leaning over him. Except not as a huge moon somewhere above, but as a human face. And his voice hadn’t hurt Sam’s eardrums and—

Sam’s eyes widened and he hauled himself onto an elbow to look around. There sat the bunker in proper proportions. A few paces away, Castiel was trussing a dazed-looking Crowley in his chains again. Kevin sat at the table rubbing at his temples. When he caught Sam’s eye, Kevin grinned blearily.

“Hey,” Kevin greeted. “You’re fixed.”

“I…” Sam glanced down and realized that he’d lost his clothes, though someone had draped a blanket over his lower half. Sam looked back at Dean, whose face was starting to break into a grin.

“I gotta tell you,” Dean said. “Shooting a demon and immediately getting a naked, 6’4’’ dude appearing out of nowhere is one those things.”

Sam coughed out a half laugh, and when Dean reached down to wrap his arms around Sam’s shoulders, it turned into something real.

***

Castiel caught Sam in the library, sitting cross-legged by a small hole in the wall with a scroll in his lap.

“Sam?”

Sam lifted his eyes, and for a moment, seeing Castiel standing over him swung Sam back into a mild sense of nervousness. Except then Castiel settled down beside Sam, and his face was a perfectly manageable size again.

“Hey.” Sam straightened his legs and took a moment to marvel at how long they were now, how they could almost reach the bookshelf standing across from them.

“Is everything all right?” Castiel asked, mirroring Sam’s position.

“Yeah.” Silence. “Pretty much.”

Castiel glanced down at the hole in the wall, and when he lifted his eyes to Sam again, they were uplifted at their edges. “You miss some parts of it?”

Sam huffed a laugh. “Miss is the wrong word,” he said. “It’s more that I was finally starting to get used to it. I was learning to maybe accept it. And then…” Sam waved a hand. “Bam.”

“That part _is_ difficult,” Castiel said. “Dean and I were talking, about how having that powder on hand might be useful one day. But we don’t want to use it again if we don’t have a reliable way to reverse it.”

“Yeah.” Sam cleared his throat and lifted the scroll slightly. “I’ve been thinking about that too. Did Kevin show you the translation he was working on?”

“No.”

Sam unrolled the scroll and handed it across to Castiel, pointing at a few lines.

“Read that,” Sam said.

The scroll rustled as Castiel brought it closer to his face. He examined the words for a long while.

“Sam.” Castiel lowered the scroll and looked to him, his head tilted. “Did you not feel that you deserved your proper size?”

“I dunno,” Sam shrugged. “I’m still trying to figure it out. But I guess I felt stupid for touching that powder, yeah. For causing all this trouble. I felt like I was being a burden to you guys.”

“You weren’t,” Castiel cut in.

“Yeah.” Sam tried to grin a little to alleviate the way Castiel looked at him. “I think helping to stop Crowley is what made me feel not so…” Sam hesitated. “Useless.”

“Well,” Castiel handed the scroll back over. “You’re not useless, have never been useless. You protected Dean back in that forest, didn’t you?” Sam shrugged. “And if hooking Crowley in the eye is what brought you back, then I’m glad for it. Even if watching you do it gave me a heart attack.”

“Yeah?”

“You could have been seriously hurt or worse,” Castiel said grimly. “Let’s leave it at that.”

A beat of silence, and Castiel hauled himself to a stand. He turned and extended a hand. “Come on,” he said. “Dean sent me to find you. Dinner’s ready.”

Sam looked up at Castiel, then reached up and grasped Castiel’s hand. He could feel its familiar shape and callouses. Taken from a different perspective now, that was all.

Sam placed the scroll on a table and followed Castiel to the door. Sam glanced back at the hole in the baseboards one last time before he reached out and flicked off the lights.

**Author's Note:**

> So...that's that! Thanks to everyone who's taken time to read, and sorry to everyone who's hung around waiting for next installments. If you're still here, then grab a cookie, you deserve it.


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